Assessing forest ecosystem health I. Model, method, and index system

Ecosystem health assessment is one of the main researches and urgent tasks of ecosystem science in 21st century. An operational definition on ecosystem health and an all-sided, simple, easy operational and standard index system, which are the foundation of assessment on ecosystem health, are necessary in obtaining a simple and applicable assessment theory and method of ecosystem health. Taking the Korean pine and broadleaved mixed forest ecosystem as an example, an originally creative idea on ecosystem health was put forward in this paper based on the idea of mode ecosystem set and the idea of forest ecosystem health, together with its assessment. This creative idea can help understand what ecosystem health is. Finally, a formula was deduced based on a new effective health assessment method-health distance (HD), which is the first time to be brought forward in China. At the same time, aiming at it's characteristics by status understanding and material health questions, a health index system of Korean pine and broadleaved mixed forest ecosystem was put forward in this paper, which is a compound ecosystem based on the compound properties of nature, economy and society. It is concrete enough to measure sub-index, so it is the foundation to assess ecosystem health of Korean pine and broadleaved mixed forest in next researches.